German Patent Application DE 102 33 736.5, which was not previously published, discloses a heat-exchanging device which has a substrate formed as a thin plate with an underside and an upper side and a device to produce an oriented fluid flow, where the underside and the upper side of the substrate are tangentially crossed by the flow. Webs lying one behind the other in the flow direction project from the upper side of the substrate, where the height of said webs is less than the distance between adjacent webs in the flow direction. The webs are arranged transverse to the flow direction. The substrate also has a plurality of channels which are regularly arranged between the webs and which extend through the substrate.
DE 39 29 004 A1 discloses a heat-exchanging device with double plates, which have partitions on their inside and/or outside surfaces, which are shaped as beads or webs, lying transverse to the flow direction. These webs lie one behind the other in the flow direction, where the height of said webs is less than the distance between adjacent webs. The webs create turbulence in the flowing medium and thus effect an improved heat transfer.
DE 38 22 890 A1 shows a cooling arrangement with a blower and a plurality of cooling elements arranged parallel to one another, which are formed from elongated cooling webs and intervening gap openings, where the cooling webs of two adjacent cooling elements are staggered so that, in the flow direction, the cooling webs of one cooling element cover the gap opening of the adjacent cooling element.
DE 198 13 119 A1 shows a turbulence heat recovery device with profile plates, whose profiles in the plate plane are placed alternatingly opposed at the same angle, inclined with respect to the longitudinal extension of the pressure gradient. This is intended to create a turbulent flow, which improves the heat exchange performance.
Cooling devices with a substrate through which channels extend are also known from DE 196 19 060 A1 and EP 0 308 576 A2. The channels can be rectangular or circular.
DE 92 14 061 U1 describes a cooling body, whose heat introduction surface has ribs and furrows to increase the surface.
Heat-exchanging devices of the type described above are used, for example, to cool electronic components, such as microprocessors or chips. Generally, one distinguishes between active and passive cooling devices. With active cooling devices, units such as blowers or ventilators are used either to support or effect heat transport with the aid of a fluid flow. The fluid flow created flows over a cooling body, which is coupled to a heat source and absorbs waste heat from it. Known cooling bodies have a ribbed or columnar structure, e.g., with partially roughened surfaces. The fluid flowing through or around the cooling body thereby absorbs the heat. Air is generally used as the fluid during the cooling of processors. Since air is a poor heat conductor, the cooling bodies must be designed to be relatively large, so as to have heat-liberating surfaces which are large in proportion to the heat introduction surface. For this purpose, the proposal is made in DE 100 41 829 A1 that the heat-liberating surface be substantially larger than the heat introduction surface, which is realized by a prespecified structuring in the form of channels and in the form of furrows, which have a flow connection with the channels.
In addition to the large dimensions, a problem with active heat-exchanging devices is the energy required to create the fluid flow. An effective heat transfer is associated with a relatively high power consumption and spatial requirements for the corresponding device, such as a blower. Also, a good heat transfer takes place from the heat-liberating surface to the fluid, if the heat-liberating surface has a relatively high flow resistance toward the fluid flow, which, however, requires a stronger blower and thus a higher power consumption.
The initially mentioned heat-exchanging device in accordance with DE 102 33 736, which was not previously published, solves the problem of a high heat exchanger performance with low flow resistance and small spatial requirements and also makes possible a good heat transfer using air as a fluid.
In many application purposes, however, the heat source—that is, for example, an electronic component, such as a microchip—is substantially smaller with respect to its heat-liberating surface than an initially described cooling element, so that the cooling element cannot be directly coupled to the heat-liberating surface of the object to be cooled. Thus, the problem arises of transporting the heat energy as rapidly and completely as possible to the cooling elements from where it can then be removed to the surroundings by the fluid.